Loss
by silverstrings
Summary: Collection of 'what if' one shots. [Various pairings, angst, character death]
1. Juubei

**Title:** Loss  
**Chapter:** Part 1 - Juubei  
**Fandom:** GetBackers  
**Pairings:** None, particularly. Implied Juubei/Kazuki, Ban/Kazuki, Ban/Ginji, depending on what you want to see.  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Disclaimer:** Still not mine.  
**Notes/Warnings:** Character-death, angst. Ban POV.

* * *

I knew it would happen someday; Ginji knew it, too. Hell, everybody did, Threadspool included. How many times had he said out loud that he'd been born just to protect Kazuki and Threadspool would just laugh and smile and tell him how old-fashioned he was? He never gave those kinds of smiles to anyone else; not to me, not to Ginji or the Kakei girl or his other watchdog. Those smiles were all for samurai-boy.

And he died, doing what he loved and lived for.

And he died with a smile on his face and an apology on his lips because he knew Threadspool was crying even if he couldn't see him. And even hours after he was gone, Threadspool didn't want to let him go; put up a damned good struggle when we tried to pull him away. He cried a lot, he yelled a lot, made absolutely no sense in anything he said. He still has _us_, but he knows and I know and everyone knows that it's not the same for him.

It hasn't been long – maybe a month, if that – so it's still appropriate that he be mourning. I'd be more worried if he weren't. 

He just wants to be left alone. Doesn't want anyone's sympathies or kind words or comforting touches and they feel hollow to him. He told me as much a few weeks after it all happened, but it's really the most he's said to me. He's too angry to think straight right now; hates life, hates himself, hates the world and everyone in it (knows it isn't rational and therefore hides himself away).

Everytime I look at Ginji and picture him in samurai-boy's place and mine in Threadspool's, I can't say I blame him.


	2. Ban

**Title:** Loss  
**Chapter:** Part 2 - Ban  
**Fandom:** GetBackers  
**Pairings:** Perhaps slightly implied Ban/Ginji and Kazuki/Ginji, if you want to see it.  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Disclaimer:** Still not mine.  
**Notes/Warnings:** Character-death, angst. Kazuki POV.

* * *

He feels that it's his fault, and it's not. Not really. They both knew the risks when they took that job. Midou-kun let his guard down at the wrong instant and by the time Ginji-san and I got there, there was nothing to be done. At first I'd feared Raitei would make an appearance, but it didn't happen. His grief was more than even Raitei could handle.

I never noticed before Midou-kun took him out of Mugenjou how empty Ginji-san's smiles used to be. Outside, I've seen him smile – _really_ smile – all the time… and now that those smiles have reverted back to what they once were, I can see the blaring difference and it breaks my heart. I loved Ginji-san in a way I shouldn't have long ago and that changed when he did after getting away from the Volts. Now I feel guilty for ever wanting the 'old' Ginji-san back.

He stays with me now, possibly because it's quieter than Madoka-san's, more private than the Honky Tonk, safer than Mugenjou. But he doesn't know what to do with himself. And while he doesn't speak much, I know it's not because he's purposely bottling things up but rather because he doesn't know how to put what he feels into words. 

There's no point in him going on jobs anymore, he said once. 'The S meant we were never alone,' he told me, and that was all he needed to say. The S was gone and Ginji-san was alone.

I was never fond of Midou-kun, but I didn't hate him. Perhaps we even had a thing or two in common – such as our interest in Ginji-san's happiness. I could never hate anyone with his best interest at heart (as much as he would pretend otherwise at times).

I'm selfish enough to want him back just so I can see Ginji-san really smile again.


	3. Sakura

**Title:** Loss  
**Chapter:** Part 3 - Sakura  
**Fandom:** GetBackers  
**Pairings:** Perhaps slightly implied Toshiki/Sakura, if you want to see it.  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Disclaimer:** Still not mine.  
**Notes/Warnings:** Character-death, angst. Kazuki POV.

* * *

She was so soft and quiet, unobtrusive and kind, self-sacrificing and motherly. 'Background music', as Shido referred to her once. A constant presence but one too commonly overlooked.

I wonder if she would believe just how many people are mourning her now. 

Emishi took it harder than most; he tried to comfort MakubeX and Juubei in anyway he could, but his attempts were hollow and too full of pain to be of any effect.

Juubei has lost his sister – the woman he looked up to and admired for her quiet strength and ability to keep such a clear head through even the most trying of times. He cried. I've never seen him cry before. We did our crying together where others would not bother us, and it's best that way. He has it harder than anyone else right now, adjusting to the loss of the only family member he truly had left.

To us, Sakura was a mother, a sister, a friend, when all of us really needed such. 

MakubeX blames himself. 'I shouldn't have let her go. It was too dangerous,' he says. But Sakura had dealt with Beltline thugs before. She'd have been furious if someone else had gone and perished in her place.

It was Toshiki who brought her back, her shawl torn and soaked red that matched the front of her dress, Toshiki's shirt, arms, hands… He carried her in while the others that'd fought alongside them trailed and limped and staggered in after. And then he'd simply stood there and stared at a stunned MakubeX with the look of a lost child. Once I'd been called and arrived in Mugenjou, Toshiki was still there in the corner of the control room, studying his bloodied hands with a sort of dulled expression. I knelt beside him, reached for him, and he lifted his head a little. All he said was, "She was always kind to me."

In a world where someone like Toshiki cares for and is cared for by so little, the loss of someone he adored so much is something he will be nursing for perhaps as long as Juubei does.

Background music indeed. Take the background music out of any movie, any song, and its presence – or lack thereof, rather – becomes painfully obvious.


End file.
